Almond

Dry, hacking cough with scanty expectoration, historically eased by small, carefully measured doses of bitter almond water as a demulcent antitussive

Rough, dry, flaking skin or lips responding to emollient massage with sweet almond oil

Overview. Almond is the seed kernel of Prunus dulcis, a small deciduous tree native to the Middle East and Central Asia and now cultivated widely in Mediterranean climates including California and Spain. Two forms are recognized: the sweet almond, eaten as food and pressed for its bland, emollient oil, and the bitter almond, which contains higher levels of the cyanogenic glycoside amygdalin and was historically distilled into a dilute bitter almond water used sparingly as a sedative and antitussive.

Clinical Notes. Sweet almond oil remains a practical, well-tolerated emollient. It is used externally for dry skin, chapped lips, cracked nipples, and as a soothing massage and carrier oil, and taken internally in small amounts as a mild demulcent laxative for simple constipation, particularly in children and the elderly where harsher purgatives are unwanted.

Medical Uses and Dosage. When largely diluted (2 per cent), it has been employed in medicine as a sedative to subdue spasm, and allay nervous irritability. It has been used to relieve revere vomiting and purging, to check colliquative diarrhoea, to cure pertussis and spasmodic coughs, asthma, hysteria, chorea, dyspepsia connected with morbid irritability of the stomach, etc.; also externally in several diseases of the skin.

Specific Indications and Uses. "Elongated and pointed tongue with reddened tip and edges; uneasy sensations in the stomach" (Scudder), nausea, vomiting, gastric irritation and pain; vertigo; angina pectoris; cough of phthisis (palliative); gastric cough with scanty secretions. In the specific use of this drug, 5 minims of the official acid (2 per cent) are added to 4 fluid ounces of water, and teaspoonful doses of the mixture administered every 2 or 4 hours.